Blast delays family's plans to settle in West

Updated 1:41 am, Monday, April 22, 2013

WEST — Tamisha and Robert Boles were in Dallas Wednesday evening with their 7-month-old daughter, McKayla, when they got the news on Facebook.

"It was numbing," said Robert Boles as he stepped over a pile of shattered glass in his kitchen floor Sunday afternoon, less than a mile from the West Fertilizer plant. "Never in our lives did we think we'd be hearing West, Texas, on the news except for the kolaches."

Robert , 35, and his wife, Tamisha, 26, returned to their home Sunday to salvage their belongings and check on neighbors. The family's plans to settle down in West after the recent birth of their daughter came to an abrupt end Wednesday night after an explosion at the plant left their home uninhabitable.

The house is still standing but the roof is buckled and the doors and windows were blown off. A shed that stood in front of the house is now leveled.

"We were lucky that we weren't here and all the damage is monetary," Robert Boles said. "Houses can be rebuilt, but something like that (pointing to a portrait of his daughter) ... you can't replace that."